UConn Right To Stop Spring Weekend Mayhem

EDITORIAL

April 25, 2012

Kudos to the University of Connecticut for its handling of Spring Weekend, the end-of-term bash that in recent years had gotten tragically out of hand.

For the second year in a row, there were almost no rowdy parties, few arrests — and no student deaths. That was due to a much increased police presence in Storrs and to strict enforcement of no-visitors rules.

Some students are decrying, on these pages and elsewhere, the university's clampdown, despite the 2010 death of a UConn student during a Spring Weekend party. Criticism is to be expected from those whose fun has been interrupted.

The unpleasant fact is that what party-goers see as an entitlement had become an on- and off-campus exercise in uncontrolled drinking, with the expected results. During past Spring Weekends, partiers flipped cars, assaulted police officers and set furniture on fire. In 2009, more than 100 arrests were made, some on weapons and drug charges.

It is true that in the past decade, much of the trouble was caused, or at least abetted, by non-students. It is they, not university officials, who should be blamed for "ruining" the tradition of Spring Weekend.

But UConn was in a bind, and clearly President Susan Herbst and other administrators could no longer watch the campus self-destruct every April. Strong measures were called for; strong measures were taken. And strong measures should continue for a few more years. What one writer called "Spring Lockdown" probably will be eased when students no longer expect a wide-open campus bacchanalia every spring.